Someone told the Microsoft Flight Sim developers about LIDAR

The developers of Microsoft Flight Simulator we can be proud. Last month, at the FlightSimExpo 2024 In Las Vegas, representatives boasted of 15 million users and one billion registered flight sessions – numbers that Asobo Studio claims to have, putting the game at the top of the most played flight simulations of all time. Now the studio is back on track and producing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024is coming out this fall. Asobo calls it “the most ambitious simulation ever undertaken,” and given his track record, I’m inclined to believe him.

The long conversationpresented by head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jörg Neumann and co-founder and CEO of Asobo Studio Sebastian Wloch, clocks in at over an hour and a half. But those 90 minutes pack plenty of tasty treats for dedicated virtual pilots—improvements like app-based offline flight planning, increased ground traffic density at major airports, and the ability to actually step out of the cockpit to perform pre-flight checks in first person.

But the tidbit that should make PC and console gamers sit up and take notice the most is the mention of a new partner, a company that Microsoft recently acquired called Vexcel imaging.

Vexcel is a pioneering machine vision company known for its UltraCam range of aerial cameras. These multispectral arrays include near-infrared sensors as well as more traditional RGB colour sensors. Combined with their software, this results in a dramatic improvement in the resolution of the image data shared with Asobo’s design team – as demonstrated by MSFS2024The latest teaser trailer was shown at the Xbox Games Showcase.

Neumann used some of his time on stage at FlightSimExpo to give fans a behind-the-scenes look at what was actually shown in this trailer – especially in the opening moments when a single-engine plane flies over Monument Valley in Arizona.

“The natural landscapes are something that people have never seen before,” said Neumann. “Not to this extent and certainly not in this level of detail.” He then handed over the reins to Wloch, who was to delve a little deeper into the subject. You can read the entire article on the 14-minute mark.

It is important to understand that before Microsoft Flight Simulator had applied three-dimensional objects – things like houses and trees – to two-dimensional data automatically. But this kind of automation is not unlimited, which is why the first time I flew over the Great Pyramid of Giza, the pyramid complex was surrounded by a forest of strange brown deciduous trees instead of sand dunes. Using UltraCam data for photogrammetry – the 3D reconstruction of real-world features from nothing more than imagery – gives Asobo’s terrain rendering software a lot more to work with.

“We now have a floor that is completely 3D, instead of […] 2D with a texture,” said Wloch. “There are many different 3D materials [including] the grass, the rocks and the trees. Everything is now 3D […] and everything is procedurally generated based on the world data.”

But Vexcel’s camera technology is not standing still. This summer The Austrian company is expanding its arrays to include LIDAR also. This will probably add Altitude and relative distance to the data shared with Asobo in addition to the graphical data. And that, my friends, could enable procedurally generated environments the likes of which no one has ever seen in a commercial flight simulator.

Read more on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 before his Start date: 19 Novemberwhen it will be available for purchase and as part of Xbox Game Pass.